Finding Your Academic Voice

Rachel Horrocks Birss Essays, Lightning Sessions 23rd February 2021academic, Academic Skills, challenges, Essays, Lightning Sessions, university, writing 0 Comment

Have you ever been told you need to ‘write more academically’? Ever had feedback that you need to develop a more academic voice’? Ever wished you knew how to ‘write like an academic’?

Such feedback is not uncommon and, whilst the advice itself is often valid, when it’s framed in these ways the comments can be confusing, demotivating and in some cases downright unhelpful.

It is important to communicate your ideas, arguments and findings in an appropriate and confident manner. But this is sometimes presented as a greater challenge than it really should be. Whatever your level of writing, you can – over time – develop a style of writing (and presenting) that is appropriate to your discipline area.

Have a look at the recording of our Lightning Session on ‘Finding your Academic Voice’ then scroll down for a summary of the three key steps you can take to develop your confidence in this area.

Step 1: Apply the simple conventions of academic writing

There’s no single set of conventions that apply to every bit of academic communication. For example, there is a clear distinction between the style of writing in Science subjects compared to say Humanities. Likewise, the ‘rules’ may change slightly depending on whether you’re writing ay a formal essay, a piece of reflection, or a report.

So it’s important to recognise the conventions for the specific type of writing you are doing, and then to apply these conventions to that work. We explore the common ones in the Lightning Session, so go back and have a look at that part of the recording if you’re still not sure what they are.

Step 2: Talk the language of your subject

As well as the general conventions mentioned above, every subject or discipline has its own language or technical vocabulary – words and phrases that someone outside of the discipline may struggle to understand but which instantly convey meaning to those in the know. Using this language confidently and competently is a key step in developing a confident and effective academic voice.

One of the great ways to develop your confidence here is to pay attention to the reading that you do. How do other people write about your subject? What kind of language do they use? Beyond just the vocabulary though, pay attention also to how they make arguments, how they use evidence, how they attempt to persuade you as the reader.

Step 3: Keep it simple, clear and authentic

People often fall into the trap of trying too hard to sound ‘academic’. Academic voice does not mean writing torturously long sentences or having a thesaurus beside you so you can find a fancy long word to replace a perfectly adequate short one.

If you’re following steps 1 & 2 then you’re well on your way to developing an authentic and effective academic voice. The final step is to write as clearly and simply as possible. The great thing about this is that, as you develop your confidence, that ‘simple’ level of writing will naturally increase, so that over time you will find yourself using more complex language and putting more of your personality into the writing.

But don’t force it – if you’re at the start of that journey, focus on doing the basics well and things will evolve naturally from that point.

This blog post was written by Dr Gordon Spark (Academic Skills Centre)

Reflective Writing

Rachel Horrocks Birss Uncategorised 17th February 2021 0 Comment

Reflective writing is increasingly becoming a part of university assignments, as well as professional practice. Reflection is highly beneficial, as it can help us improve by connecting theory to practice and showing us what we can do better next time.

While reflection is essential, it can also be challenging. It’s often difficult to know how to be critical about our personal experiences, or how to connect our practice to the appropriate theory and evidence.

To find out more about reflective writing, watch our Lightning Session on the topic, then scroll down for our top tips!

Tip 1: Be Personal

Reflection should be personal. Your reflection should deal with your own experiences/practice, rather than speaking generally about the topic. While it’s often tempting to cover big, general situations, your reflection will be stronger if you engage with specific situations you’ve encountered and how you responded. Being too vague is the enemy of good reflection!

Tip 2: Be Critical

One central aspect of academic reflection is criticality. While reflection is personal, it isn’t subjective. To write critically about your personal experience, you should drill down into the details of your situation, and connect your experience with theory and evidence. Reflection should involve discussion about your own thoughts and feelings, but it should always connect those emotions and beliefs to external sources.

Tip 3: Be Purposeful

Reflection must be purposeful. One essential aspect of reflection is the final step: the “now what?” question. Since reflection is all about improvement, it’s important to end your reflection by discussing what you’ve learned. You may consider questions like “what would I do differently next time?” or “how has my behaviour changed because of this event?” This “now what” stage is often the most difficult, but it’s central to effective reflection.

Want more help? There are many excellent models you can use to structure your reflection. We discuss one in the lightning session, but if you’d like to learn about some more complex models, this short video will explore a few of the most common.

Focus and Motivation

Rachel Horrocks Birss Blended Learning, Lightning Sessions, Study Skills 8th February 2021Academic Skills, Blended Learning, challenges, focus, Lightning Sessions, motivation, Procrastination, productivity, self-care, stress, time management, wellbeing, work 0 Comment

Learning how to focus well and motivate yourself are essential skills for university, as well as for the workforce and the rest of your life. If we can motivate ourselves to get going and focus intensely on our work, we can accomplish difficult tasks quickly and efficiently. If, however, we struggle to focus or get motivated, doing any work will always be a slog.

Particularly in stressful times, like the current lockdown, focus and motivation can be really challenging. Whether you find yourself with far too much to do (perhaps you’re trying to homeschool or care for an elderly relative alongside your uni work), or far too little (maybe your packed social calendar has been reduced to a string of lonely evenings), these tips can help you shake off the cobwebs and get back to productive, fulfilling work!

Watch our Lightning Session on Focus and Motivation, then keep reading for more tips!

Motivation

In essence, motivation is all about empowerment. It’s about believing we have the ability to do something that matters. After all, if we believe we can’t do something, or that it won’t make any difference, then why bother?

If you’re struggling to get motivated for a particular task, ask yourself these questions:

1: Can I do it?

2: Will it make a difference?

If the answer to either of these questions is no, ask yourself, why not? If you don’t believe you can do it, maybe you need some additional support or training. If you don’t believe it will make a difference, you should spend some time reflecting on whether completing this task with help you reach your goals.

Focus

Focus is essential to good work. When you focus on the task at hand, you can get more done in less time. So, how do we avoid distractions and focus on our work?

1: Work in Short Chunks. Strategies like the Pomodoro Method suggest setting a timer for 25-minutes, then taking a 5-minute break, then working for another 25-minutes. Whether you focus for 25 minutes for 55, working in short, focussed bursts is more efficient than hours at a time.

2: Eliminate Distractions. Put your phone on silent and close any social media tabs on your computer. Our brains are wired to pay attention to distractions, so do yourself a favour and shut them down before they start!

3: Take Breaks. Counterintuitively, breaks actually make us more productive! Taking intentional breaks away from the screen, whether that’s making a cup of tea or going for a long walk, allow our brain to reset so we can go back to our work with renewed energy and more creative ideas.

Getting the Most from Recorded Lectures

Rachel Horrocks Birss Blended Learning, Lightning Sessions, Study Skills 8th February 20218th February 2021Academic Skills, Blended Learning, challenges, Lightning Sessions, online lectures, recall, recorded lectures, revision, university, work 0 Comment

Recorded lectures are a now-familiar feature in many modules and degree programmes. As more and more of us spend more and more of our time engaging with online recorded lectures, it’s important that we understand how to engage effectively with this ‘new’ way of learning.

Sometimes, you can both attend the lecture ‘live’ online and watch the recording afterwards. In other cases, there is no live option and viewing the recording is your only way of engaging with that lecture.

Either way, recorded lectures present both benefits and potential challenges. While they let you organise your time flexibly, it’s also easy to feel overwhelmed by the volume of material you need to get through. Likewise, although looking over content again can be helpful in certain circumstances, it’s easy to find yourself spending an unsustainable amount of time on each recording.

The solution is to understand what you need to get out of these lectures and to develop an effective set of strategies for engaging with the material. That’s just what we discussed in the Lightning Talk on ‘Getting the Most from Recorded Lectures’, so why not watch the recording of that workshop now, then scroll down for our top tips?

Tip 1: Do some Prep

One way you can engage more effectively with recorded lectures (in fact with any kind of lecture) is to do some preparation to work out what you need to get out of the lecture.

For example, you might begin by brainstorming what you already know about that topic. If parts of the lecture cover things you’re already aware of, there’s much less need for you to make notes on those sections.

Doing this also helps you to highlight questions that you might have about the topic – you can then be particularly on the lookout for parts of the lecture that cover the things you don’t yet understand fully.

Tip 2: Watch Straight Through

One of the downsides of recorded lectures is that it becomes very easy to spend hours on each lecture. While it’s tempting to keep pausing the lecture replaying sections in order to make more detailed notes, this will likely result in an impossible workload.

So, try not to press the pause button. Instead, if there’s a bit you might want to go back to later, quickly note down the time in the video but keep watching. It may be that after you’ve watched the rest of the lecture it makes more sense anyway, but if not, you’ll easily be able to go back and fill in the gaps.

Tip 3: Review, Recall, but don’t Repeat

Don’t be tempted to listen to the lecture over and over. It’s good to have the recordings there as a safety net, but they’re not recorded with the intention that you should spend hours and hours on each one. Instead, review what you’ve taken from the lecture and identify any gaps in your knowledge and understanding.

For example, simply take a blank piece of paper and quickly brainstorm everything you can remember from the lecture, then use your notes to work out where the gaps might be. You can then revisit selected parts of the lecture to shore up those gaps, or you could do some additional research into the topic.

For more information on review and recall, including more suggested strategies, see our Revision Bites resource, and particularly the section on Building Recall.

STEP UP to Blended Learning

Rachel Horrocks Birss Essays, Lightning Sessions, Study Skills 8th January 20218th February 2021Academic Skills, challenges, focus, lectures, Lightning Sessions, motivation, online lectures, Procrastination, productivity, recorded lectures, self-care, time management, university, wellbeing 2 Comments

Welcome to Semester Two!

Whether you’re returning to campus or staying at home, this is hardly the semester any of us wished for. The recent lockdown and increased restrictions are challenging for us all. If you’re struggling to stay motivated while working from home, or you just can’t get used to recorded lectures, don’t worry– you’re not alone!

To support you in this challenging time, the Academic Skills Centre has created resources addressing these two key issues: Online Lectures, and Focus and Motivation.

For more support in a whole variety of areas, check out the full programme of Lightning Sessions.

Independent Learning Units

If you prefer working in your own time, log in to the Blended Learning for Students organisation on My Dundee. There, you’ll find two new units: Focus and Motivation, and Getting the Most from Recorded Lectures.

These units contain our top tips for learning in this new environment. You’ll find text, videos, and quizzes to help you test your knowledge. Each unit will take approximately an hour to work through, and you can dip in and out as you like.

Lightning Sessions

To kick off the semester, we ran two Lightning Sessions at the beginning of semester. The sessions lasted just 30 minutes, and we converted them into blog posts afterwards! Whether you missed the sessions, or you want a refresher, you can find both of them on our blog.

Getting the Most out of Recorded Lectures

Extracting relevant information from online lectures is a whole new challenge. Learn how to get the most out of your online lectures, without having to re-watch the recording seven times.

Focus and Motivation

Without as many on-campus classes and social opportunities, it can be hard to stay motivated. Watch this session to learn how to be more focussed while working online, and how to motivate yourself in difficult circumstances.

Managing Stress

Rachel Horrocks Birss Lightning Sessions, Study Skills 15th December 2020productivity, self-care, stress, time management, university, wellbeing, work 0 Comment

It’s hard to work when we’re feeling overwhelmed. Whether we’re struggling to keep up with deadlines, or we’re handling difficult circumstances in our personal lives, most of us will experience at least some level of stress while at university.

The first step to managing stress is to realise that stress isn’t a sign of weakness. Rather, stress is a physiological response to a perceived threat. Feeling some stress about an assignment isn’t a sign that you shouldn’t be at uni. Rather, it’s a completely normal response to a challenge.

Secondly, stress isn’t all bad. In fact, low levels of stress can actually increase our productivity! When stress gets to be too much, however, it’s important to seek help. If stress is impacting your physical or mental wellbeing, you should talk to a trusted friend, or get in contact with the University’s counselling services.

Finally, stress isn’t something we’re stuck with. While we can never totally eliminate stress from our lives, we can improve our response to it. By applying some targeted strategies, we can learn to manage stress and stay happy and healthy in the face of challenges!

To learn how to manage stress, watch our Lightning Session, then read the tips below.

[To skip the intros, jump straight to 2:17]

In the Lightning Session, we discuss at least a dozen different ways to manage stress. Here are our top three:

Take Care of Yourself

When we’re busy, self-care becomes the first thing to go. While we may not all have time for leisurely bubble baths, it’s important to take care of ourselves in several basic ways. Getting a good night’s sleep, exercising, and eating healthily are all major contributors to our overall wellbeing. If we’re feeling stressed or sad, going for a quick run or walk outdoors can have a significant impact on our mood.

It’s worth prioritising these things, even if that means we have less time for work. Going to bed on time, then waking up refreshed, will make you far more productive than staying up all night trying to finish your essay. If you take good care of your body, you’ll be able to get more done in less time.

Break it Down

Don’t try to get everything done at once. Instead, break your large tasks (such as “write essay”) down into manageable chunks (for example, “write introduction” or “research for 45 minutes”). Big tasks are unmotivating and can be overwhelming, while smaller ones give you that all-important sense of achievement.

It’s also okay to work for shorter blocks of time. Rather than setting aside a full day to work, try working in smaller segments, perhaps just 20 minutes to an hour. Working for shorter periods, then taking intentional breaks, will help you maintain focus, which makes you more productive.

Do the Things You Love

When we’re stressed, we feel like we need to work all the time. In fact, the opposite is true. During stressful times, it’s important to stay connected to the things that are important to us. This could mean spending time with family or friends, playing a sport, or working on a creative project. Doing enjoyable activities is actually one of the best ways to manage stress, which increases both our happiness and our productivity!

Referencing

Rachel Horrocks Birss Essays, Library, Lightning Sessions, Study Skills 15th December 2020Academic Skills, challenges, citation, Essays, library, Lightning Sessions, plagiarism, research, sources, writing 0 Comment

Referencing can be one of the trickiest parts of essay writing. It can be hard to find the various components of a reference, or to understand why they’re even necessary in the first place. Difficulties with finishing up a bibliography are also one of the main reasons students submit essays late!

The good news is, referencing doesn’t have to be painful. If you invest a little time in learning how referencing works, it actually can become one of the most straightforward parts of your assignment.

To find out more about referencing, watch our Lightning Session! In this workshop, we challenge Kayleigh McGarry, one of the Digital Skills librarians, to use CiteThemRight.com to cite all kinds of sources. If you’ve ever struggled with referencing, this session is for you!

[To skip the intros, jump to 1:35]

In a hurry? Here are the main three things you need to know about referencing:

References have Two Parts

The first thing to know about referencing is that it consists of two parts:

The in-text citation (either in parentheses, or a footnote)
The reference in the bibliography (at the end of the essay)

To reference correctly, you must include both these parts. They each look slightly different, but don’t worry. If you use CiteThemRight.com, it will show you what each part looks like.

Use CiteThemRight.com as a Guide

There are all kinds of referencing guides on the internet, many of which are excellent. However, there are also many referencing generators, which are websites that ask you to input the information, and then they create a reference for you. This may sound too good to be true, and, sadly it is. Most of the time, reference generators make mistakes, so if you use one, you must check your references yourself before submitting.

To get it right the first time, we recommend using CiteThemRight.com. The University pays for a subscription, so you can sign in with your UoD credentials and get free access to all the information! The site shows you how to cite pretty much anything in all sorts of referencing styles, and it even offers templates you can use to create your own references.

If you’re new to CiteThemRight.com and you’re not sure how to use it, watch the recording above!

Start Early and Be Consistent

The best way to make sure your referencing is correct is to give yourself time. Work on your bibliography as you go along– don’t wait until the end! It’s no fun trying to proofread your bibliography just minutes before the deadline.

The other important tip is to be consistent. Sometimes, it can be hard to keep track of the fiddly little things, like whether or not there should be a full stop after the author’s name. While you should try to get these things right, the most important thing is to be consistent. If you have a full stop in one reference, make sure you have it in them all. Your marker may not notice if a full stop is in the wrong place, but they’ll definitely notice if you’re inconsistent!

Finally, if you’re struggling with referencing, it’s okay to get help! While we can’t “check” your references, our team is happy to help you find the information you need. Feel free to contact us at asc@dundee.ac.uk with any questions you may have!

Make Your Writing Flow

Rachel Horrocks Birss Essays, Lightning Sessions, Study Skills 14th December 2020Academic Skills, Essays, Lightning Sessions, writing 0 Comment

Does your writing ever feel clunky? Do you struggle to transition between ideas? Is it challenging to express your ideas properly?

If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you may be struggling with flow. At University, students frequently receive the feedback, “your writing doesn’t flow,” but what does that mean?

To find out more about flow, and how to write assignments with smooth sentences and perfect paragraphs, watch our Lightning Session!

[To skip the intros, head straight to 1:54]

In the recording, we discuss how to make your writing flow, both over the essay as a whole, and down at the sentence level. Here, we’ll share our top three tips:

Outline Your Ideas

To make your essay flow, planning is essential. If you just start writing, your ideas will likely be disjointed, and all out of order. Creating an outline before you start writing allows you to plan the order for your ideas, so that they can build on each other in a logical structure.

Use Transition Sentences

The first and last sentences of each paragraph are essential for linking your ideas together. Use the first sentence of each paragraph to link back to the previous paragraph. This demonstrates that your ideas all flow together.

Example:

Last sentence of the first paragraph: “Thus, penguins are the friendliest kind of bird.”

First sentence of second paragraph: “In contrast, puffins are far nastier than penguins.”

As you can see, the first sentence of the second paragraph picks up on the ideas of the first paragraph, demonstrating that the paragraphs are connected. Transitions like this help your essay flow seamlessly between ideas.

Sentence Structure

Within a paragraph, the best way to make your writing flow is to vary your sentence structure. Some sentences can be short. Others can be longer and more meandering, expressing complex ideas and tying concepts together. Using a variety of sentence lengths makes your writing flow better.

Writer’s Block

Rachel Horrocks Birss Essays, Lightning Sessions, Study Skills 14th December 2020Academic Skills, Essays, Lightning Sessions, writing 0 Comment

We’ve all been there: staring at a blank screen, unable to write a word. Whether we love writing or we struggle to get our thoughts on paper, Writer’s Block impacts us all. Though it affects us at different times and in different ways, almost all of us will experience Writer’s Block at some point in our academic careers.

When does Writer’s Block tend to strike?

When we’re getting started
When we can’t find the right way to express a difficult idea
When we need to pull everything together

While Writer’s Block is most common at the beginning of an assignment, it can happen at any point. Particularly if we’re stressed, or lack confidence with the material, it’s easy to get stuck.

The good news is that if you’re struggling from Writer’s Block, you’re not alone! Even professional authors often experience Writer’s Block. If you’re struggling, this does not mean you aren’t good enough.

There are also tried-and-true methods of working through Writer’s Block. Watch our Lightning session to learn more, then scroll down to read our Top Tips!

[To skip the intros, jump straight to 1:53]

In the recording, we discuss all kinds of ways to beat Writer’s Block. Here are a few of the most effective:

1. Do the Prep Work

Many times, if we’re struggling with Writer’s Block, it’s because we’ve not done the necessary prep-work. Before we start writing, it’s essential to spend time researching the topic and planning a structure for the essay. Once we know what we’re going to write, actually getting the words down becomes much easier.

[Note: Sometimes people procrastinate on writing by spending endless hours researching and planning. If that’s you, it’s important to just start writing! You can always write a bit, then do more research, then write more, then more research… Academic writing doesn’t have to be a linear process.]

2. Take a Break

If the words just aren’t coming, the best thing you can do is take a break. Get away from the screen, and head outside for a walk. You could even do something fun and creative, like play a musical instrument or bake cookies. You just might find that the best ideas come when you’re doing something else!

3. Just Write!

Writer’s Block is often caused by perfectionism. We think every word needs to be perfect, so we struggle to get anything written. If that’s you, the best thing to do is just write. Challenge yourself to write as many words as you can in five minutes. Or try to write a paragraph as badly as possible. It’s perfectly acceptable– and even beneficial!– to have a messy first draft. Just get the words down, then edit later.

Be More Critical

Rachel Horrocks Birss Uncategorised 14th December 202014th December 2020 0 Comment

At University, we’re told to “be critical.” We may be instructed to “critically analyse” a topic, or we might get the feedback, “needs more analysis” or “be more critical.”

But what does this mean? In non-university life, we associate being “critical” with being negative or judgemental. To criticise someone means to say bad things about them.

At University, however, being critical just means having a justified opinion. It’s not about being negative, or nit-picky. Rather, it means we need to make a point, and then back up that point with evidence.

To learn more, watch our Lightning Session, then read on!

[To skip the intros and jump right in, head to 4:00]

1. Have an Opinion

We’re often told that academic writing needs to be unbiased, and that essays shouldn’t be just our personal opinion. This is certainly true, but the reality is that academic essays should present an opinion– just one that’s backed up by the evidence. This is what academics call an “argument.” Having an “argument” is what takes our essay beyond description and into critical analysis.

Consider the following examples:

1. Penguins are the best kind of bird because I like them.

This is a personal opinion, and it isn’t very critical. The author thinks that penguins are best, but their only reason for thinking so is because they, personally, like penguins. We should avoid writing like this in academic essays.

2. Penguins are a kind of bird. They are known for being fast swimmers and for taking good care of their young.

This writing is descriptive. It tells you a few facts about penguins, but we don’t know what the author thinks about penguins. There isn’t any critical analysis here.

3. Penguins are the best kind of bird, because they are fast swimmers and they take good care of their young.

This writing is critical. While we certainly need more evidence (we’ll talk about evidence in the next point) the author has made a point (“penguins are the best bird”) and given a reason (their swimming speed, and how they take care of their young.) This is the basis of critical analysis.

Essentially, while essay writing can’t be just personal opinion, an opinion is an essential part of critical analysis. We must then back up that opinion with evidence, as we’ll see in point two.

2. Back up your Opinion with Evidence

Once you have an opinion, you need to back it up with evidence. In Example 1 above, the author had an opinion, but the evidence they presented wasn’t very good. Example 3 was better because the author had the exact same opinion, but they backed it up with better evidence.

What counts as evidence in an academic assignment?

Academic books and journals
Scientific studies
Government (or third party) documents
Personal experience (if writing reflectively)
And much more!

Depending on what you’re researching, pretty much anything can be a source. For example, YouTube might not be the most reliable source for your Anatomy assignment on the bones of the hand, but if you were writing an Education essay about how teachers use the internet to engage students with science, then it might be perfect!

Once you’ve included evidence, your paragraph will look something like this:

Penguins are the best kind of bird. They are incredibly fast swimmers, with some species logging speeds of up to 25 miles per hour (Smith, 2018). They also take exceptional care of their young (Ravensburg, 2016), and have been known to adopt the abandoned young of other species (Greene, 2020). Compared to other similar birds, such as puffins, penguins are much faster and more caring, which makes them the best kind of bird.

[Note: all sources in this paragraph are fictional]

Of course, if this was a real essay, you’d need far more evidence to prove that penguins are the best kind of bird. The paragraph does, however, illustrate how to state your opinion, then back it up with evidence.

Any more questions? We know this article has only scratched the surface, so feel free to email us at asc@dundee.ac.uk if you have more questions.